Concrete Turnabout
by Oh My Freakin' Freakin
Summary: One second, Apollo is losing at poker in the basement of some nightclub he'd never heard of until Phoenix dragged him there. The next second, someone is dead. What the heck? Read to find out. T for random weirdness.
1. Poker Night

Apollo looked in the mirror one last time, but there was only so much he could fix his hair. He had to stop stalling eventually.

"Are you ready yet?" Phoenix called from outside the bathroom door. "We can't be late."

"In a minute," Apollo called, and wondered why he ever agreed to this. Wright was taking him out to play poker, in some place Apollo had never heard of.

"Okay." Phoenix replied. "Are you ready _yet?"_

_"No!"_

"Oh, okay." There was a pause. "How 'bou-

"NO!"

"... Hey, Apollo. Are you-"

"YES, I'M READY ALREADY!" He slammed the door open and glared at his employer, who looked back, vaguely surprised.

"...No need to yell." He responded. "Come _on. _The host doesn't like latecomers."

Apollo dragged his jacket on and followed Phoenix out the door. "Where are we going, again?"

"Kryptonite Bar. Or, more accurately, their basement." Phoenix started striding down the street, playing catch-up with his shadow as the streetlights tossed it down the dark lane. Apollo had to practically run to keep up with him, and didn't have the breath to ask any more questions.

Five blocks later, though, Phoenix started talking anyway.

"I must warn you, though, that while the host is the best one I've ever played with, she can sometimes be a little... eccentric." He said it like it was nothing, but something about his manner gave Apollo pause. They stopped at a crosswalk.

"...She's one of those people who would probably get kicked out of the loony bin for being too crazy, isn't she?" Apollo asked, a knot of dread growing in his stomach.

"Yeah." Phoenix replied. The light turned, and he started walking again.

_Why, oh, why did I ever agree to this..._

"She calls me Little Birdie Cheep Cheep." Phoenix confided.

_..._

_Please let me wake up soon..._

"But there's no arguing that her games are definitely the most interesting in town."

_'Interesting'...?_

_Oh g_od_. This is going to be a nightmare._

They arrived at Kryptonite Bar a few minutes later. The bouncer, whose tuxedo looked like it had been made for someone with a lot less muscles than him, made to stop Apollo, but Phoenix gestured, and he stopped. They went inside, and went down two flights of stairs to a basement room, where the decor relied heavily on bare concrete. The most noticeable thing in the room was a huge black leather swivel chair, which towered over the crammed poker table in the center of the room like a massive hunch-shouldered crow. A stereo in the corner was playing classic orchestra music, and a single flickering lightbulb in a wire cage hung from the cement ceiling and sketchily illuminated the two figures already seated in the metal chairs around the poker table. Just then, the occupant of the leather chair spun around to face them, and grinned.

"Ooh, good! Little Birdie Cheep Cheep brought his fledgling in tonight. I'm Scratch, and I run this place."

Scratch was actually pretty attractive, but her makeup- well, Scratch was beyond capital-G Goth. Juicy black-cherry lipstick with bronze flecks, pitch-black eyeshadow, and glittering silver eyeliner. Her clothes were just as out there. She was wearing a maroon-and-black silk bodice fringed with a stiff black lace ruffle, with black mesh neck and sleeves. On the bottom, she wore a tiny, ragged ruffle of fine black netting that might have some sort of post-apocalyptic tutu, and then just miles and miles of shapely female leg in black fishnets. Below that, she wore black satin kitten heels with white rhinestone anklebands about three inches wide. Her hair, auburn with black and maroon streaks, was pinned up onto her head, and capped off with a black silk hat with two ridiculously huge, sweeping feathers in its brim, one the same glossy pitch-black as her nail polish, the other a pure, pristine white that seemed to glow in comparison with the rest of her outfit. The effect was, actually, quite pleasing, once you got over the initial shock of it all.

Some introduction seemed to be necessary. "Um, hi, I'm A-"

"Shh!" Scratch cut him off, holding a finger up to her metallic lips, her blue-glass-blue eyes almost comically wide in their black-painted lids. Apollo noticed for the first time that she was wearing black lace gloves with the fingers cut off. "We don't use real names in here. You can be Peace. You already know Little Birdie Cheep Cheep, and this here is Stickman-" a tall, thin man with a gray felt bowler that threw his face into shadow raised a hand and nodded, silently- "and this one's Rhinestones."

_...Wow._

Just after Apollo had gotten used to Scratch's appearance, there had to be someone like Rhinestones to throw him off-balance again. She was Scratch's polar opposite in everything she wore. Shiny pink ligloss with sparkles, the barest minimum of sparkly pink eyeshadow dusted onto her eyelids. She had a cute little blush in her cheeks and she even- oh God, she even had _freckles._ Her bright flaxen-blonde hair was coiled into perfect little tight ringlets that bounced when she moved her head, and Apollo spied, not one, not two, but _three _little hot-pink, sequin-bedecked bows in it. Everything about her just squealed PREPPY in a girly little voice. She was wearing a dark pink hoodie open over a baby-pink cami, and when she wiggled her fingers at Apollo, he saw that she was wearing glossy fake nails, natural-tone with neon pink French tips and a sparkly little pink rhinestone on each nail.  
Scratch may have seemed to have been following her own internal rules of logic when awarding Apollo and Phoenix their respective nicknames, but for Rhinestones, Apollo had to admit, she had hit the mark in its very center. Rhinestones was the girl you pictured in your mind when you heard a blonde joke.

Scratch shuffled the cards, bending them in the middle expertly, so that they made that perfect _thwipp _sound that Apollo could never get cards to make. She dealt them, and as they picked up their hands, she whistled a little tune, full of swoops and trills and arpeggios, cheery and yet somehow dark at the same time.

"So, like, wait, how do you like play this game, again?" Rhinestones asked, twirling a finger in her sausage-curled hair. Her voice was everything Apollo had expected from looking at her- chirpy, slightly breathy, and valley girl to the flow.

Apollo looked at Phoenix as Scratch patiently explained the rules to Rhinestones. Nick merely shrugged.

They started playing. Stickman took the first round, then Phoenix. Rhinestones stopped to ask Scratch what a royal flush was, then looked back at her hand, moved her lips silently as her forehead wrinkled with the unaccustomed pressure of thinking, and made a perfect "O" face. Everyone folded.

The game was a blur, until about halfway through and some time after midnight- Apollo had lost all sense of time in sitting there in that basement room, when it turned out that Rhinestones was actually a small-town poker champion, and she, thus revealed, began to wipe the board with everyone else.

Apollo was just recovering when Scratch, in the middle of holding a conversation with Rhinestones in mixed valley-girl-ese and telepathy (_"So, then, like, he said-" "He _didn't_!" "He, like, totally _did_!" "Like, he _did_?" "Totally!"_) froze, the feathers in her hat quivering.

"Shh." She said in a quiet voice with all trace of a mocking valley girl accent gone. Her voice carried across the dark basement with an edgy undertone, almost panicky. Something about it gave Apollo goosebumps. "Listen." Her voice was a whisper now, and Apollo got shivers to go with his goosebumps. "Do you hear it?" she asked in the same hushed, anxious voice, her deep bottle-blue eyes flickering across the basement.

_Okay, that's it. _Apollo thought, staring at Scratch, every trace of his poker face forgotten. _This chick has lost it. She has lost it beyond losing it. She has dropped it down the sewers, where it was eaten by alligators who don't exist. I need to get out of here. Now. She was so _obviously_ mentally unstable, from the moment she spun around in that ridiculous huge black leather chair. The outfit, the energy, the... the... the _everything_... And now s__he's snapped. S_he's gone around the bend. And the next three bends after that. She's mental. I need to get out of here. Why did I ever agree to this? WHY? Apollo, you are so dumb. You are really dumb. For real.

He snapped out of his reverie when he heard Phoenix say,

"Oh god."

_Yes! He's realized it! He's finally realized it! I mean, even for someone with a crazy-tolerance-level like his, it was inevitable. He'd have to be blind not to realize it. And deaf. And stupid. _

He glanced at Phoenix, furtively, his poker face back on, and realized that Phoenix seemed to be... _agreeing _with the mental ...female sitting in the black leather chair.

Then, everyone moved.

Scratch vaulted over the ridiculously high back of her leather chair, sending the fabric of her skirt flying out behind her legs. Apollo reflexively looked away, but not before he caught a glimpse of a black garter strap with a rhinestone buckle. And then, before her skirt even had time to stop moving, she was sprinting up the stairs, the light glinting off her bedazzled anklecuffs as she thundered up the steps three at a time.

Phoenix was up, too. He must've jumped up from his chair at the same time Scratch vaulted out of hers, which had, admittedly, distracted Apollo. Phoenix's chair was still clattering on the bare concrete floor, the sound painfully loud and sharp in the suddenly empty room. As Phoenix sprinted by, he grabbed Apollo by the arm, dragging him out of his chair.

"Wha- " Apollo asked, struggling to get on his feet as his employer dragged him across the room at full speed.

"No time to explain." Phoenix said, still sprinting. "Run." He let go of Apollo's arm, and hurtled up the stairs. Apollo stumbled, and, seeing no alternative, ran after the two lunatics he was somehow connected to now.

He got to the main level several seconds after said lunatics, huffing and puffing enough to send the swine homelessness rate skyrocketing for years.

The instant he got there, he knew something was wrong. No one was dancing, or even grinding. There was a knot of people standing around at the corner of the dancefloor, bending over something on the ground...

Apollo had just the time to wonder what they were all bending over when he saw a horribly still, white foot in a red high heel poking out on the floor from the murmuring knot of anxious humans.

Scratch, who had been kneeling on the floor close to the knot's center, straightened up, letting go a horribly still, white wrist as she did so, which fell back down to the floor stiffly when she let go.

She looked up, and Apollo could see tears running down her face. A Goth girl crying is always a sight to see, and there was something dreadfully _real _about Scratch's black-stained tears that even the foot, even the wrist, could not convey. Scratch took a deep breath, then announced, quietly,

"She's dead."

* * *

**A/N: Yup, I just ended the chapter right there. Because I am evil. I promise I'll answer questions in Chapter Two, though. Questions like: _Who's_ dead? How did they die? Was it murder? How did Scratch and Phoenix know? Just who is this Scratch chick, anyway? (Okay, _that _one won't be answered until a lot later, but still, it will be answered eventually.) Will Scratch ever get eye-makeup remover in time, or will she be forced to sport Goth tears in public? Why the heck did Freakin' Freakin' spend so much time describing every girl's outfit? Seriously, there's like two entire paragraphs in there about nothing but freaking clothes. And makeup. And hair. Why? (Okay, that one won't be answered in Chapter Two either. I'll answer it here instead. Here ya go: Because I felt like it.) That's not a reason. (And that's not a question.) Are you having a conversation with yourself between normal sentences and sentences in parentheses? (Yes. Yes I am.) Why? (Because I felt like it.) That's not a reason. (Is too.) Stop using parentheses. {Rebel!} **

**A/N/A/T/O/N/T/O/U/T: (Author's Note About That Other Author's Note, The One Up There) If you read that, I'm very sorry.**


	2. Cab Ride

It was 2:30 in the morning, and Apollo Justice was sharing a taxi with two lunatics and a dead woman, and he was not happy.

"Why the hell am I here, again?" He asked of the taxi in general.

"Well, when a man loves a woman very much-" The male lunatic, who also happened to be a renowned ex-defense attorney by the name of Phoenix Wright, started, after a pause.

"I _meant,_ why the hell am I sharing a taxi with two lunatics and a dead woman at 2:30 in the morning?"

"I've told you this before." The male lunatic explained patiently. "The ambulance arrived in time to verify she was dead, but then there was an urgent call, and apparently there weren't enough ambulances to go around. So we- or rather, the late Miss Veritas- got the short shift, because living people who might die are always a higher priority than dead people who won't live."

"Isn't that a bit redundant?" Apollo snapped, his patience drawn thin by the fact that he was, after all, in a taxi at 2:30 in the morning with two lunatics and a dead woman. "I mean, 'dead people who won't live.' Really? You couldn't have done without those last three words?"

"Well, if I hadn't added that last part, the sentence wouldn't have flowed properly."

"Oh! Well, that makes it all better, doesn't it? I'm sharing a taxi with a dead woman and two lunatics at 2:30 in the morning, but that's all alright, as long as your sentences are flowing properly!" Apollo screeched.

The male lunatic didn't respond clearly, but grumbled something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like "Sue me."

The female lunatic didn't respond either, but looked out the window and tried to hide her tears, which would have been easier if her tears weren't carrying several pounds of dark makeup with them.

And the dead woman didn't respond at all, just bounced up and down in the seat every time they hit a pothole.

"And anyway, why do _we _have to ride in the cab with the dead body?" Apollo asked.

"Well, Scratch came along with the late Miss Veritas because she was Miss Veritas's closest friend in life, and I came along with Scratch because I'm Scratch's closest friend who was at the club at the time and not dead, and you came along with me because I'm your boss and I told you to."

There was a pause.

"...Couldn't we have at least put her in the trunk?" Apollo asked plaintively. It was _cramped _in there.

"Of course not!" Phoenix seemed scandalized. "Who do you think we are, the Mafia?"

"Could ya keep it down?" A voice with a heavy Scottish brogue came from the driver's seat. "I know it's me job, but I didn't ask to be sharin' me cab with two lunatics, a dead woman, and a cryin' Goth at 2:30 in the morning."

"Yeah, I didn't ei-" Apollo started, before a particular aspect of the cabbie's math struck him. "-Hey! I'm not a lunatic!"

"Could ya keep it _down_?" The cabbie responded again, aggravated. "Some of us are tryin' to sleep here!"

There was the sound of multiple people thinking very fast as the last sentence sunk in. (There was also the sound of the late Miss Veritas thudding back down onto the seat as the cabbie hit yet another pothole, but Apollo was trying to tune that out.)

Then everybody starting yelling, except for, of course, the late Miss Veritas.

"WHAT THE HECK! NO! NO NO NO!" Apollo shouted.

"DON'T! WE'LL CRASH!" The male lunatic bellowed.

"GIVE ME THE WHEEL!" The female lunatic screamed.

And the dead woman, well, she didn't yell anything.

"Ach, you're all so tightly wound." The cabbie said dismissively. "I was jokin'."

Apollo was silent.

The male lunatic was silent.

The female lunatic was silent.

The dead woman was silent too, but really, what did you expect?

"...Great." Apollo said. "Stuck in a cab at 2:30 in the morning with two lunatics, a dead woman, and a _comedian_."

"I try." The comedian responded, absently adjusting the mirror.

"Well, don't." Apollo said.

The female lunatic started to hum quietly to herself, a soft melody full of loss and minor chords. The male lunatic decided it would be a great idea to join in and hum harmony, and promptly began to do so, or to at least try to, very badly. The comedian, feeling left out, began to sing an old Scottish drinking song as loudly as possible, and the dead woman fell over onto Apollo's lap.

_OHGOD OHGOD GETITOFFME IT'SSOCOLD AAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGHHHhh..._

The next thing Apollo knew, they were sitting in the sitting room in the coroner's office.

"Wh- what happened?"

"Miss Veritas fell over onto you when the cab went 'round a bend, and you sort of freaked out and fainted." Scratch said. She was seated in one of the upholstered plastic chairs in the waiting room, and she couldn't look more different than last night. She was still in the same outfit, but gone was her eyeshadow, her eyeliner, her black lipstick and her black-cherry-and-bronze lipgloss. Gone too was her hat, fallen to its fate in the trample to get to the dying Miss Veritas, and gone even were her shoes, which she held in one hand by their rhinestone straps, leaving her feet bare and cold-looking, with only fishnet stockings between them and the floor. She had torn the ends off her black-painted nails. And gone, most noticeably of all, was simply the way she had been. In his mind's eye, Apollo saw her as she had been last night, smiling as she dealt cards, laughing with Rhinestones over some joke that only the two of them got, and in turns grinning teasingly, pouting, and looking quizzically at Stickman as she tried to get him to talk. He saw her sitting in that ridiculous chair back in the basement at Krypto, her legs crossed and hooked over the armrest, lounging like she owned the place.

And he looked at her there, sitting in the sitting room in the coroner's office, her back ramrod straight, her shoulders drawn forward as though she could hide from the world behind them, eyes red-rimmed but dry. And he realized that however little he had enjoyed their trip, that taxi ride must have been infinitely worse for Scratch. He was about to comfort her, to console her, to try and somehow bring back at least one small piece of the cocky, carefree girl from the basement last night. He could feel the words forming on his tongue, and he knew that, for once in his life, he was about to say all the right things.

And then the police burst through the door, and the words died on his lips.

"Excuse me," The one in the lead, a policewoman with her hair pulled back in a bun so tight, it was a wonder that it hadn't pulled her brains out through her scalp yet, said. "Are you the one they call Scratch?"

Scratch nodded, and then the room was dead silent, except for a quiet click as they handcuffed her.

**A/N: You remember all those questions I promised I'd answer in this chapter? Yeah, well... it sorta seems like I lied. Sorry. But hey, it's not like anyone is reading this crap, right? Haha. That'd be _funny. _**


End file.
